


Dimensions and Verticals

by bellatemple



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-14
Updated: 2008-07-14
Packaged: 2017-10-26 22:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellatemple/pseuds/bellatemple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam accidentally gets Dean out of Hell.  The results are something no one could have expected. . . .</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dimensions and Verticals

**Author's Note:**

> I went and used my tablet again. Also, I blame this fic entirely on being done with [](http://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com/profile)[**spn_j2_bigbang**](http://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com/) for the year and the song from which this fic gains its title.

Previously, on Supernatural. . . .

 _Let's say the world was a legal pad  
and everything was two dimensional.  
But somehow you were the third coordinate  
and you were towering over our college rule.  
Would you draw me with your pencils and your pen,  
make me much prettier than I really am?  
And could you draw us with some picture perfect friends  
if I chipped in for the ink?  
\-- "Dimensions and Verticals" by Say Hi to Your Mom_

  


After that first year on the road, after Jessica and Stanford and Palo Alto, after the demon and the cabin and Dad's deal, Dean and Sam stopped relying as much on their father's journal. They tucked it away in the trunk, pulling it out only when they really needed it, as though the absence of their father made the journal too hard to read. And things got crazier, less and less the sorts of things Dad had encountered in all his years of hunting, and suddenly it was all demons, everywhere they looked and Dean made his deal and Sam knew there was nothing amongst the pages and pages on spirits and monsters to explain how to break it, and the journal was all but forgotten.

And then Indiana happened.

Two days after -- after that event Sam wouldn't even refer to in the privacy of his own head -- Sam found the journal under the box Dean kept his fake IDs in and he started carrying it, again. It was research time, again, even more so now than it had been over the past year, when Dean kept driving them forward to new and different hunts (which _still_ always had some demon in them, somewhere). Now, Sam was content to leave the driving and hunting to the other hunters, however many were left after the fire at Harvelle's. He had more important things to worry about. Dean's soul hung in the balance.

So he carried the journal with him, taking pages out of the front and tucking them away somewhere safe and adding pages to the back for his own notes as he researched ritual after ritual, spell after spell, crazy-assed suicide mission after crazy-assed suicide mission to find the way to save his brother.

The journal was soon filled all over again, now with diagrams and arcane symbols, rites in Latin, Enochian and even _Elven_ in one instance. Had Bobby known what he was doing, he might've been able to warn Sam off, but Sam kept Bobby distant, afraid of words like "let go" and "Dean wouldn't want this", so he filled the journal without thought to whether or not there was a reason that all these rituals and ideas weren't kept in one place. If maybe the words and symbols _themselves_ had power, had some sort of intelligence behind them that would take Sam's wishes and his efforts and turn them into something he never would have imagined.

If that intelligence might have a bit of a sick sense of humor to it, as well.

He was sitting in the Impala in the parking lot of a rest stop somewhere around the Wyoming-Montana border, flipping through the journal with a flashlight in his teeth when he saw it: a flash of red, a handful of lines in black. A very simple, very small drawing, little more than a doodle, in the bottom left-hand corner of the page.

  


Sam blinked. He was _pretty_ sure he hadn't been doodling in the margins of this thing. He flipped quickly through the other pages, finding nothing like it on any of the others. And why would he doodle _that_ of all things? It was an image he'd been doing his best to wipe from his mind. He flipped back.

The image had changed.

  


Sam stared.

It couldn't be --

No. Freaking. Way.

He reached up to rub the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes for only a moment. ". . . Dean?"

When he looked again, the picture had changed once again.

  


"Holy shit."

Sam slammed the journal shut. He stared at the cover for a long moment, then flung it to the other side of the Impala. He grabbed a bottle of holy water from the back seat and held it up, ready to drench the whole thing, but froze.

If that really was -- it couldn't be, but if it _was_ , then he could -- he had to call Bobby.

"What?"

Bobby didn't sound too terribly pleased to hear from him.

"It's me."

"What, you're talking to me, now?"

"Shut up." Sam did his best to explain what had happened, and Bobby did his best to listen seriously.

"How much sleep you had lately, son?"

"I'm not hallucinating."

"You think your brother's a stick figure in your daddy's journal."

Well, when he put it that way. . . .

"I don't know what to do!"

"Did it say anything else?"

"No, I shut the book. Hang on, let me check." Sam reached for the journal again, setting the phone down on the seat beside him as he flipped through the pages. He could hear Bobby yelling at him from the other end, but ignored it. It didn't take him long to find the page, again.

  


"Dean, man. Is that -- is that really you?"

Nothing happened. The picture didn't change. Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes again, and when he looked back down. . . .

  


Okay, so apparently he had to look away for Dean to respond.

"You're, uh. You're kind of. In Dad's journal."

  


"In Dad's journal. You're kind of -- a doodle."

  


"No kidding." Bobby was getting louder on the phone, becoming a really irritating buzz in Sam's ear, and he held up a finger at the still stick-Dean. "One second." He snapped the journal closed and picked up the phone. "Yeah?"

"You talking to yourself now, boy?"

"I was talking to Dean."

A long sigh. "Dammit, Sam. Dean's dead. And unless you went and did something damned stupid without telling me --"

"I don't know how it happened, Bobby, but it's _him._ I just -- I just know."

Bobby was silent for a long moment, and Sam wondered if he should start being on the lookout for men in white coats.

"I'm not crazy."

"Alright."

"I'm not, Bobby. Look, I'll -- I'll come to your place. And show you, okay?"

"Okay, Sam." Another pause. "You drive safe, you hear?"

"I will, Bobby. I'll see you in awhile."

He hung up the phone and quickly picked up the notebook again. "Dean?"

  


Sam blinked very deliberately. "Yeah?"

  


Yeah. That was definitely Dean, alright.

"I'm going to South Dakota, Dean. Bobby might be able to -- ah -- help. I'll talk to you later, alright?" He hurried on, not looking down or giving Dean a chance to argue. "Good night, Dean."

  


* * *

Sam drove through the night and well into the next day before he made it back to Bobby's, not even daring to open the journal again, for fear that he really _had_ been hallucinating, and that Dean wouldn't be there if he looked. He didn't think he could handle that.

He hoped Bobby would have some kind of answers.

Bobby didn't bother with any sort of pleasantries, simply met Sam out in the yard, holding his hand out. "Alright, kid, let's see it."

Sam bit his lip, then slowly held the book out to Bobby. "It's towards the back."

Bobby nodded and opened the journal up, flipping quickly through the pages. His frown deepened the more he saw, but he didn't look up. "Hell, kid. . . ." He stopped abruptly, and Sam felt his hopes rise. Was he imagining things, or did Bobby just blush?

"He ain't movin'. Last night, sounded like you were having a conversation with him."

"You have to look away for it to change."

"Like a pooka," Bobby muttered, eyes flicking up to Sam's, then back down again, and Sam didn't have time to ask about pookas and what they had to do with anything before Bobby's eyes widened and he snapped the book shut. "Right. Inside. Now."

"But Bobby --"

" _Move_ , kid."

Sam moved.

Bobby didn't start explaining until they were sitting down at the table in his kitchen. "Right, kid, the hell did you think you were doing with that journal?"

Sam grabbed the journal and held it a little possessively to his chest. "I was taking notes. On how to save Dean." He surreptitiously opened the book and glanced down to where he knew the doodle would be.

  


"Where the hell did you get a leather jacket and jeans?!"

Well. There went the stealth. Bobby snapped his fingers in Sam's face, drawing his attention up and away from Dean again.

"Kid, you need to listen up. I'm thinkin' that _is_ your brother."

Sam felt his shoulders relax in a rush. He hadn't even known they'd been tense. "Oh thank god."

"God ain't had nothing to do with it, you idiot." Bobby shook his head and ran a hand over the top of his cap. "It's all those symbols you've been drawing. They dragged his ass out of hell, yeah, but they stuck him in that book, instead."

"But he's back, Bobby, that's good. He's back." Sam glanced down at the book with what he already knew was a goofy grin.

  


"No, Dean. He's not."

  


Bobby circled the table to stand behind him, and Sam snapped the journal shut, but apparently not fast enough.

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, Sam." Bobby rested one hand on Sam's shoulder. "Dean's not meant to be in that medium. Keeping him that way, even as a stick figure, is using up a lot of energy. It's draining."

"But, Bobby --"

Bobby squeezed Sam's shoulder, then patted it gently. "I know, Sam. I'm glad he's out of hell, too. But we can't let him stay that way. You even thought about how delicate paper is? If it's not archival quality, Dean's going to yellow. And is that indelible ink? What if it gets wet? What if something rips him?"

Sam swallowed. "Oh god."

"And that ain't all. I know your daddy had a lot of different things in there, on a lot of different creatures. This . . . effect. It may not be limited to Dean."

"Bobby, what are you saying?"

"A drawing of a ghost isn't gonna be so bad to you and me, even if it is . . . animated. But Dean. . . ."

"He doesn't have any weapons."

"No, he doesn't."

"Oh god." Sam swallowed again, his hand tightening on the closed journal. "Bobby, what are we going to do?"

"Can't say for sure. But I think we might be able to figure something out."

* * *

  


"It's a gun, Dean."

  


"I do not. And Bobby pointed out that there might be. . . ."

  


". . . Yeah, like that."

* * *

"Anything, Bobby?"

Bobby shook his head sadly. "Nothing yet, kid. Far as I know, no one's ever had this trouble, before."

Sam nodded, resigned. "I'm gonna check on Dean, okay?"

"He's alright, Sam. That gun you drew him worked pretty well, remember?"

"Yeah, but I just wanna. . . ."

"I know. Go on, then."

Sam flashed Bobby a small smile, then went to retrieve the journal from the locked archiving case Bobby had provided. He pulled it out gently -- much more so than he'd ever treated the thing before Dean started _living_ in it, and flipped through the pages. Since finding out that other figures in the book could travel across pages, Dean had started relocating himself pretty frequently.

Sam had to guess that life in a book, even one like Dad's journal, wasn't exactly Dean's cup of tea.

  


That grin was infectuous, and Sam couldn't help but return it. "What, Dean?"

  


Sam laughed. "Yeah, Dean. You're made of awesome."

  


Sam frowned. "Uh, Dean?"

  


"You're, uh. Bleeding."

  


Sam closed the journal and beat himself in the forehead with it a few times.

* * *

Bobby was out trying to track down a potential source of more books on botched rituals, Sam was sitting, paging through a book on how to draw clothing, glancing up occasionally at Dean in the journal, though the picture wasn't changing, much.

  


Badly drawn line-beds, apparently, didn't take nearly as much energy as clothes, guns, or realism. Sam was just thankful that Dean wasn't bleeding, any more.

He reached out for his cup of coffee blindly, eyes fixed on a section on how to hint at texture in a countour drawing without actually drawing every fiber of a piece of cloth, and managed to graze the mug with his fingers instead of getting a firm grip on it.

He snapped his head up, and everything seemed to move in slow motion.

The cup tipped one way. Sam drew a breath. It rocked back the other way, coffee sloshing around at the top, and Sam reached out. It tipped back, and over, and Sam's hand caught the mug, but not before the damage was done. There was coffee all over the table.

 _There was coffee all over Dad's journal._

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Sam snatched up the journal and spun in place, searching the kitchen for some kind of towel or napkin or _anything_ he could use to blot up the mess. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't. He glanced down at Dean.

  


  


He closed his eyes and opened them, but the image didn't change. He blotted furiously at the stain with his sleeve, but it did not good. The coffee had completely swamped Dean's image, blurring it out of recognition.

He'd drowned Dean in coffee.

He'd killed his brother.

He dropped to his knees. "Dean. Oh, god, Dean."

He clutched the journal to his chest, feeling his breath heave and catch, feeling the hot coffee seep through his shirt. He didn't care. Nothing mattered, now. He'd brought Dean back from Hell only to destroy him, himself.

He _sucked._

A loud horn sounded from outside, Bobby's truck, from the sound of it, but Sam didn't care. He heard a thud, then lots of cursing, but he didn't care. He heard Bobby shout his name and more cursing, but he didn't care.

Then the door slammed open and Bobby dragged a naked, coffee-covered, completely _real_ Dean in through the door. "Goddammit, Sam, you listen to me when I start yelling for you!"

Sam stared.

"D-Dean?"

Dean lifted his head, wiping furiously at the coffee that dripped from his eyelashes. "Sammy?"

Sam ran forward and pulled Dean from Bobby's arms, wrapping him in a tight hug. He was getting even more coffee -- and crap, it was _hot_ \-- all over himself, but he still didn't care. He really, absolutely, totally, and completely _did not care._

"You're back."

Dean thumped Sam on the back tiredly, nodding into Sam's shoulder. "'M back, Sammy."

"I thought -- the coffee, I thought you would be --"

"Well, hell." Sam looked up to see Bobby holding the journal. "Guess the solution was to destroy the paper representation, after all."

"Yeah." Sam's voice was shaking, and he gripped Dean all the tighter, burying his face in his brother's coffee-drenched hair. "I -- I guess it was."

Dean thumped Sam on the back again and tried to pull away. Sam let him pull back only far enough that he could look into his eyes.

"Dude," Dean said, and god but it was good to hear him say that outloud instead of just read the word in crappy handwriting. "You are never allowed to doodle again. Ever."

  
_Let's say you spilled all your coffee  
on us while you weren't looking.  
And all our world was stained, awake and drowned.  
And all you doodling looked pretty foul.  
Would you draw me air bubbles so I could breathe?  
Or at least some chlorophyll making trees?  
If I got erased would you even still love me?  
Or would you just draw yourself another he?  
\-- "Dimensions and Verticals" by Say Hi to Your Mom_

  


**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been translated into Russian by [](http://elgav.livejournal.com/profile)[**elgav**](http://elgav.livejournal.com/). See the awesomeness [here!](http://diary.ru/~elga-v/p115169813.htm)


End file.
